The Art and Architecture of Rome in Germaine de Staël’s Corinne, or Italy

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article examines Roman art and architecture in Germaine de Staël’s Corinne, or Italy (1807) and considers interior and exterior descriptions of some of the houses, monuments, and palaces the author discusses in this novel. As these different types of buildings have only been read sporadically in relation to the novel, this article reassesses the relationship between the fictional house and some of the factual buildings, with the intention to problematize the ways in which Corinne houses an exposure to difference which in turn appears to shape Staël’s own literary identity. It emerges that the dichotomy between public and private, facts (actual buildings of Rome) and fantasies (fictional houses and their interiors), is fundamental for reassessing Staël’s aesthetic leanings.